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Dec 23, 2007 10:00 pm US/Central
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Finding Minnesota: Santa's Minnesota Workshop
Kellogg, Minn. (WCCO) ―
If Kellogg, Minn., were not thousands of miles from the North Pole, you'd think you had found Santa's workshop.
Twenty years ago, Donn and Sarah Kreofsky made a fateful decision.
"One of my children was in need of a pull toy so I started making a pull toy in my garage for him," Donn said.
He made more than one and soon needed more space.
"It just kept growing," Donn said. "We couldn't control it. It was like this great big toy monster out there we just had no control of," Donn said.
That toy monster turned into Lost Arts Revival by Kreofsky (LARK) and is now 30,000 square feet.
"It's the largest specialty toy store in North America," Donn said. "We carry about 192,000 toy items."
All those wooden toys are still made by hand. There's Gillian Giraffe, Bilberry Bear, Toby Turtle and Dooley Duck. You can find all the classics, too, from marbles to dinosaurs.
"If you can think of something that was really, really cool from years ago -- and it's a classic like Tinker Toys or building blocks or hand puppets -- that's where our heart lies," Sarah said.
"The whole complex is virtually battery-free, preferring more instead to have kids do something that makes them get up," she added. "They get active, they think, they can do it with other people and they can learn it."
As the store continued to grow, so did the size of the toys. LARK got so big, in fact, that Donn had to find a whole new platform for his wood carvings: a homemade carrousel.
It took Donn nine years to carve and the horses, flamingos and dragons visitors can ride are all hand-colored.
"It's not all the plastic you see at the chain stores," shopper Matt Fischer said.
No, but it is all part of a place guaranteed to satisfy the kid in all of us.
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